The Look In Your Eyes
by tidbit2008
Summary: A conversation two years after Stella's exit. AU. MS.


**Spoilers:** Through 7x01.  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> I own nothing but my inspiration.  
><strong>AN:<strong> Written and posted in my LJ last year. Many thanks to Lisa for the beta.

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><p>And I'll forget about you long enough<br>To forget why I need to  
><strong>i saw; matt nathanson<strong>

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><p>"What's his name?"<p>

The ice cubes in her glass clink against the sides as she sets it back down on the table. Stella swallows and the liquid burns her throat as it slides down.

She looks up, expecting to find Mac's all knowing gaze, but instead he appears suddenly intently focused on the half-empty beer in front of him. He's fingering the label, pulling on the corner a little at a time. It's a fidgeting move that looks all wrong on him.

"Michael." She finally answers and sighs.

Once again she wonders if this is a good idea. Why does he need to know? Why does she want him to know? The questions fall without answers to hang on. There are answers, there always are, but putting them into words seems like it would only hurt that much more. 'Because' is the only answer she can affix. Because; that's why.

She doesn't realize she's finished her drink until the waitress appears with another. She's been watching Mac nurse his second beer and trying to decide who will break the silence first.

He looks tired. It's not really an unusual observation when it comes to Mac. He's been a workaholic for as long as she's known him. It got worse after Claire died. That first year she would have to force him to go home at night when she became too blurry-eyed to stay with him any longer. He broke down one night a few months after she died. He'd been sleeping on the couch in their living room because he couldn't stand to wake up alone; it felt like losing her all over again. He was crying as she wrapped her arms around him. In that moment he had felt so small and broken even as she was holding him up.

That night he had slept at her apartment. He was too exhausted and drained to fight her on it. And looking at the man across the table right now, it could almost be ten years earlier. The way his shoulders are slouching, the lines around his face, bags under his eyes – he looks like all the fight has been yanked out of him.

She feels responsible, but that's not fair either.

_"I love you, and I just thought you should know that."_

"_Stella..." He had looked at her through weary eyes._

"_It's okay," she had said, closing her eyes to stem the tears. "It's okay, I know."_

She put things in motion for her leave a few weeks later.

He's not the only one who's tired. Reaching up she rubs the back of her neck with her left hand. The cold metal of her ring makes the hair on the back of her neck prickle from shock. It's still something foreign that her body doesn't recognize. But then the ring has only been there for a couple of weeks, so why should it?

More questions. She feels like that's all she ever has. Even when she has the answers they don't feel like enough and she's left with the questions to carry around.

She's been staring at him for a while lost in thought. He finally looks up and she can see him starting to put back on the armor, just a little. Enough to break the silence at least, he asks her about NOLA and her team. Questions she's answered on the phone more than once by now and again since she's been back to testify on an old case, but who's keeping track. Small talk is enough to keep the air from thickening anymore. It's enough for them to pretend she didn't just drop this bomb on him out of nowhere.

_"I'm engaged."_

The words still seem to tumble out awkwardly, like they are coming from someone else in the room, like they belong to someone else. It was just a few hours ago at the lab when Mac had smiled, and said all the right phrases. After all these years they still keep up appearances, by now it's almost like a game. Who can appear the most fine-just-fine? It's a game they've been playing too well for far too long to give up now. Except for sometimes, the sometimes when it's just the two of them - like now - when the cracks in his armor start showing and her spirit flounders and she can't hide.

"Do you miss New York?"

He slips this one in like always, but she can hear the hitch in his voice when he says New York. There's enough there for her to know. With him she's always known. The standard answer goes something like 'yeah a little, but I'm enjoying being somewhere new' which is somewhat close to the truth but not enough to give anything away.

She waits until she catches his eyes to answer. "Every day."

He holds her gaze a few beats before dropping it and nodding a little; it's an acceptable answer.

It's hard to sit across from him, even two years later. She's happy in New Orleans, really she is. But then there's this. A 'this' she always thinks she has dealt with. She sighs and checks her watch. It's late, but who can sleep.

"Jo seems to have worked out."

She lets the statement hang in the air, and watches his eyebrows furrow together. He picks at the bottle label again; this must be something new. She slides her fingers around her own forgotten drink, the tips getting wet from the condensation on the glass. The ice has melted while she wasn't looking and she kind of smiles at the metaphor. When she looks up she realizes that this time Mac has been watching her. The sadness in his eyes is almost more than she can bear.

"She's not you."

_fin._


End file.
